The issue of corona virus has also reached us

On my trip from Bad Rappenau to Abidjan (Ivory Coast) via Lisbon, I also met a lot of people with surgical masks, masks from the hardware store, etc.

I already knew that from the news on TV. I was already wondering why in a couple the woman wore a mask and the man none. Don't they have sex? Or how do they do it?

I believe that some of them were not quite conclusive about the meaning of their "protective measure" or had too little information.

What the hell, I thought to myself when I remembered the time (1982) when AIDS (at that time still called "gay plague" or "gay epidemic") haunted the media (at that time only television, radio and newspapers).

First jokes were made about it, then it was played down and later the first horror messages with end-time visions came on the "market".

Approximately 45 million people (cautiously estimated) have died as a result.

Then came the first wave of Ebola. This time it was certain: "This is the end of humanity".

Almost simultaneously, an even more dangerous plague was found: the Marburg virus.

There was nothing you could do about it. Around 200 people died of the Marburg virus on the first “wave” of Ebola, around 3000.

We have known the Spanish flu since 1915 (an estimated 45 million deaths worldwide).

Apart from the plague it was even more successful ...

But at that time there was no mass media and you didn't know how to capitalize on it.

But now there are Stephen Bannon, Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica.

At the latest now you knew how to develop such a campaign and properly cannibalize it.

A little money, a potent customer (in this case the pharmaceutical industry), a pinch of fear, a little falsehood, not to say little lies, the whole thing mixed up with small "clouds of fog" and the business is running.

And business has not been going particularly well for the pharmaceutical lobby lately.

Because Sars 2006 didn't bring much. Avian flu and swine fever were also a bit of a letdown.

And the German Minister of Health did not allow himself to be “blackmailed” in 2012 and passed the law on the introduction of generics in Germany by the Bundestag.

Whereupon the pharmaceutical industry followed through on their threats and shifted both the development of key pharmaceuticals and their production to India and China.       

Now it is just right that with the new grand coalition a new government with a health minister that is easy to "mold" for industry is just around the corner. And it is just right when a new "plague" is offered.

But what now?

There is no vaccine but a compulsory vaccination?

But patience the field is already prepared. You just don't agree on the price yet?

Oh yes, now you can vaccinate against mumps and measles and what else is there that makes the pharmaceutical heart beat faster. And postponed is not canceled ...

Who is talking about the 200.000 deaths that die from malaria each year?

Didn't the Bill Gates Foundation want ...?

Oh yes, what the hell ...?

And what about the 90 million children who do not have access to clean drinking water and die from their consequences? And the 130 million climate refugees, many of whom are nameless in the wide steppe, are also far away. Apart from the thousands who die in the current wars and the millions who flee from these wars like those in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mali, Somalia….

And as we now know, around 400 people in Europe will die prematurely each year from pollution caused by particulate matter and NOX.

Is that suddenly no longer important or is there no lobby that would finance a campaign?

Is everything ultimately just a question of money? 

An iron law in the media world says: "Only bad news can be marketed well".

So much for Corona and similar “news”.

And there is also a lot to say about the subject of "investigative journalism" in the 21st century, but everyone can see for themselves ...

And there is another view of Corona history that I don’t want to hide. Some contemporaries think that this crisis is nature's first corrective measure for the parasitic behavior of a species and I'm not talking about the virus. So it is supposed to be the consequence of the enormous destruction and the endless overexploitation of nature caused by the species human.

We will monitor further developments and report on them.

* The article does not reflect the opinion of the association but only the opinion of the author.